Biography

Currently, as a consultant, I give advice on EMU law, banking regulation legislation and competition law. I am also a Member of the Administrative Board of Review (ABoR), the independent review panel for the ECB’s supervisory decisions, and an assessor in the Competition College of the Belgian Competition Authority. 

For many years now, I have been a member of the Committee on International Monetary Law of the International Law Association (MOCOMILA). Since 2017, I have been an Expert on the Panel of Recognized International Market Experts in Finance (P.R.I.M.E. Finance). 

From 2000-2020, I have been part-time professor of the law of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) at the University of Amsterdam where I still teach Institutional Aspects of EU Financial and Monetary Law and Regulation in the Master Law & Finance and where I won the title of Lecturer of the Year in 2020. I also teach at the Università di Bologna.

Previously, I have worked for the central bank and for the competition authority of the Netherlands. For 24 years, I have worked for De Nederlandsche Bank N.V. (DNB, the Dutch central bank) in Amsterdam  where I was general counsel (1989-2001) as head of the legal department that I set up. My responsibilities ranged from legal advice on central-bank related subjects, with a focus on EC banking directives, the IMF and the preparations for economic and monetary union, to in-house corporate affairs. In this capacity, I was a member of the Legal Committee of the European System of Central Banks.

From late 2001 until early 2014, I worked at the Netherlands Competition Authority (Nederlandse Mededingingautoriteit, or NMa) in The Hague, first as director of the authority’s legal department (2001-2004), then as Chief Legal Counsel (2004-2013), giving legal advice to the NMa’s Board and its departments and, finally, as strategic legal counsel at the Authority Consumers & Markets (Autoriteit Consument & Markt, or ACM), the successor to NMa (2013-2014).

I have written extensively on a variety of subjects: my academic publications range from an early institutional monograph on the ECB (1997) to contributions on EMU, including on democratic accountability of the ECB; bank holding regulation in Africa; sustainable finance; competition law enforcement in line with animal rights; and transparency of court proceedings on EU prudential supervision. 

Born in 1954, I studied sociology and law at the Vrije Universiteit (Free University) in Amsterdam, graduating in 1977.

I am married to Anneke de Blieck. We have two children and five grandchildren.